Xbox Romance II: Regret
by Cmdr. Gen. Marasco
Summary: Sequel to Truth. Colin spends the day at his friends house, and tries to come to terms with the shift in his and Miranda's relationship...with the help of a 4 player co-op campagin mission.


Xbox Romance II: Regret

For an indeterminate time, darkness filled my mind. Snippets of dreams or thoughts or something flitted through this darkness, exploding like fireworks before dying, never lasting long enough for me to realize what they were.

Then, finally, I forced myself awake. I snapped my eyes open, and they were assaulted by a brilliant burst of light, making me shut them again and groan.

After a minute, I felt awake enough to open them again, and did so. I found myself staring at a strangely white sky.

No, it wasn't sky, I realized. It was too conform, far to smooth for even the heaviest clouds.

That, and I doubt that the real sky had large cracks running through it, and a large light bulb in a socket directly in the center of it.

I wasn't outside anymore. I was inside someone's house, but it wasn't mine. None of the ceilings in my house looked anything like this.

For a moment, I started to panic, and understandable reaction regarding my current situation. If you had awoken from a confusion and exhaustion-induced sleep in an unfamiliar house, you'd react the same as I did. But I didn't let it go anywhere. Spartan's never panicked. Panic caused snags.

Instead, I decided to hold off on my freak out until I knew more about where the hell I was.

Slowly, I tilted my head to the right. Something creaked under my back, and I realized I was laying on a bed. The noise was the springs shifting under me as I moved. From the fact that the creaks were much quieter the complaints of my own bed, I guessed the mattress was a good quality one. It certainly felt nice.

I continued to shift my head further to the right. More ceiling appeared, then part of a wall, painted a light yellow. Most of it was obscured by a pair of large book shelves, directly next to each other. The one on the left was filled to the brim with what looked like every single Star Wars book printed, and several other random series. The one on the right had a large collection of random things on it's upper two shelves, a mixture of trophies and medals and papers that only had meaning for whoever they belonged too. Though considering that on the third shelf down and below were copies of every Halo book printed, mixed with two of the Gears of War novels and the entire runs of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, Philip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles, and Kennith Oppel's Airborne books, I had a pretty good idea who's house this was...

There was only one person in my circle of friends who liked any book besides video game tie-ins.

As if to prove me right, a voice called out, from the part of the room just beyond where my feet were. I raised my head a little, just enough to glance down over my feet. A boy's voice, which I was sure I knew, but couldn't remember who it was.

"So, you're awake. And here I thought you'd decided to head off on the Great Journey already."

I raised my head enough to look over my feet at the person talking.

At the far end of the room, about two feet from where I was, a pair of desks sat. The one on the left was bigger, and had a stereo on it, upon which proudly perched the five members of Noble Team, gazing down from their positions on the statue that came packaged with the Legendary edition of Reach. The desk to the right was more of a table, with a computer monitor, hooked up to a CPU that whirred softly under it.  
>Sitting before this in a rolling office chair was the boy who had spoken. All I could see of him was the back of his blond-haired head, but that was enough to spark the memory of who he was.<p>

"Chris." I said, voice dry. I suddenly noticed I was really fucking thirsty. I raised my head a bit further, and realized the right side of my face was damp. Apparently, I'd drooled in my sleep.

"Sleep well?" Chris quipped, not turning from his computer. Under his voice, I could hear the rapid tapping of keys. He was writing some large paper, from the long line of words that stretched across the screen.

I recognized the reference, and offered the correct counter-sign.

"No thanks to your driving, yes."

Chris paused in his typing to chuckle to himself. He tapped a couple more keys, probably saving the story, then closed it and turned off his monitor. He spun his chair around to face me.

It was the first time I'd actually seen his real face. When we'd met at the ECCC, he'd been wearing a gas mask (which I noticed was currently on the third shelf of the right bookshelf) most of the time. The only time he took it off was to drink, and even then he simply tipped it up just enough to slide a can of soda under it and take a sip.

Now, I got a good look at his face. It was lean, slightly patchy with acne and what looked like bug bites of some kind, blue eyes bright with excitement. Or maybe sugar, judging by the two liter bottle of Dr. Pepper currently residing under the space between his two desks.

"So, how are you feeling?" He asked. I shrugged, and pushed myself onto my elbows to look at him better. I noticed that there was a headboard behind me, so I put my back against that. It swayed as I put my weight on it, and a small stuffed animal fell onto my head. I picked it up and realized it was a dolphin, one of the earlier Beanie Baby runs.

"Not bad, really." I answered, glancing at the dolphin before tossing it to Chris. He caught it easily, then placed it on top of his monitor. "Little tired, and thirsty."

"Doesn't surprise me." Chris stood up and headed to his bookshelves. At least, I thought he was. He continued on beyond them and opened a door that I had failed to notice due to it's positioning on the same wall as the headboard I was resting on. He disappeared from my view, but I could hear the sounds of water running coming through the door. Chris came back a moment later, holding a glass of water, which he gave to me.

I drank, nodded my appreciation to him as I did so. I finished and handed the glass back to him.

"Better?" He asked.

"Yeah." I sat up a bit higher, feeling a lot less sleepy now that I had some water in me. "So..."

"How did you get here?" Chris guessed, a smile tugging at his mouth. I returned it, not completely sure why.

"You got lucky." Chris answered, sitting back down in his swivel chair. "You know that big parking lot a couple miles north of Carkeek?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"I was up there, practicing driving my uncle's stick shift. I was driving back home and I saw you come out of the woods like a boosting Wraith. You fell into the storm runoff drainage ditch that runs by the side of the road, and I fished you out and drove you here." Chris shrugged, as if to say saving my ass wasn't a big deal to him.

"So that's what I hit..." I muttered, trying to remember what had happened during what I realized must have been the night before. Something about falling, and mud...

I closed my eyes and sighed, rubbing my eyelids with my thumb and forefinger. I could actually still feel some of the mud from the night before caking my skin, flaking off as I touched it.

"You alright?" Chris asked, voice laced with concern. I nodded.  
>"Fine."<p>

With a grunt, I heaved myself to my feet, feeling a sudden dizzying rush. I closed my eyes and it passed. I realized I was hungry too. My limbs had the all-too-familiar tingle in them that signified low energy. I flexed my right hand. Sure enough, it was shaky.

Chris seemed to read my mind.

"You hungry?" He asked. "We've got some left-over hamburger and pasta downstairs."

"Sure. I could use some rations." I stepped back from the door to let Chris show me the way, which he did. Quickly, I followed.

Chris's room, it turned out, was on the second floor. Directly down the stairs from it was the kitchen, where Chris promptly started pulling out what looked like a small feast from his fridge, a massive black monolith that stood next to the stove. He laid most of it out on the small structure in the center of the room (Chris called it an "island", a fitting name as any) and started moving through it, taking whatever fit his fancy. I joined him, quickly assembling a sandwich of deli meat, Swiss cheese, and mayonnaise, as well as a bowl of the earlier-mentioned hamburger pasta. We started eating the moment we were done, leading to a small moment of silence as we both stuffed our faces.

"You gonna tell me what the hell you were doing out in the middle of no-where last night?" Chris asked, using the large wooden spoon in the hamburger pasta pot to ingest some more of the concoction.

"Oh..." Almost instantly I lost my appetite. I looked down at my sandwich, half eaten. I placed it aside. "Miranda and I..."

"Yeah?" Chris perked up, probably expecting something juicy.

"We...kinda had a falling out. I think."

"Ah." Chris's face fell, and he looked down at his feet. "Shit. Sucks, man. Been there before."

It was true; I'd met one of Chris's ex's at the ECCC. The bad blood between them had probably helped cause that fight that broke out when the guys from Rooster Teeth showed up...

"Yeah, it does." I nodded in agreement. Chris cocked his head to the side.

"You wanna-"

"No." I cut him off, knowing what he was going to ask. I sure as hell did _not_ want to talk about what had happened.

"Alright, scratch that then." Chris shrugged, then turned and looked out the window above the sink, which gave a view of his backyard. Looking over his shoulder, I noticed that there was a large trampoline taking up most of the space behind the house.

"Then what do we do?" I asked. I didn't want to sit around doing nothing. Doing nothing lead to thinking. And I didn't want to think right now.

Chris was silent for a moment, thinking. Then his face lit up again.

"You up for Reach?" He asked, face breaking into a smile. "I've got two other guys waiting to do a four-Spartan co-op of New Alexandria."

I paused, but only for a moment.

"Hell yeah." I said, pumping my fist. No matter how bad my life was going, I would never not be up for Reach. New Alexandria was pretty damn fun too... "Lets go blow up some Charlie Foxtrot's."

"Oh Rah!" Chris agreed. We bumped fists, then hurried to the living room to fire up Chris's 360.

Five minutes later, we were online. I'd retrieved my Gamertag, letting me play as myself on Chris's machine. There were two other people joining our session, allowing for the maximum number of four people for the co-op campaign. I scanned their Gamertags on the upper-right side of the screen; Grey280 and Greystripes.

Chris tossed me one of his headsets, and I slung it on. Chris did the same with his own.

"Hey, guys." He said, adjusting the headband. "Got a fourth guy for our run."

"Nice!" Grey280 called out. The headset effectively covered his voice, but I could tell it was a guy on the other line. "This is going to be awesome!"

"Hmm...indeed." Agreed Greystripes. "I look forward to seeing how good he is."

"Oh, he's good." Chris confirmed. "He's the guy I kicked ass with at the ECCC."

"So _this_ is the Colin you mentioned?" Grey280 asked.

"Yeah. I should probably do introductions." Chris gestured at the screen, as if the two other players were actually there. "These are two of the guys I usually play Live with. Greystripes, better known as Kenny-"

"Hey." Kenny commented.

"And Grey280, who I don't know the real name of cause he's not from around here, so I just call him Grey."

"Nice to meet you."

I nodded, grunted, and kept my eyes on the screen.

Seeing no reason not to, Chris started the game.

The countdown ran down to zero, and screen faded to black, turning to the familiar loading screen of the the flashing, moving blue triangles, which Chris had informed me was actually the physical representation of Auntie Dot, the "dumb" AI from the campaign. One thing I will say about Chris: he's and even bigger fan than anyone else I know. Maybe even Miranda...

The level began, opening with the awesome cutscene of Spartan-III B312, alias Noble Six, sitting in the back of a Pelican as it soared over the burning remains of the city of New Alexandria. Even with the helmet on, I could tell the Spartan was bummed, simply by body posture. Understandable, considering what had just happened on the level before last...

Ironically, I felt more in touch with the character now than I had before. Six had just lost someone...just like I had. I just hoped my situation turned out better than Six's...

"Come on, I want to get on with this." Grey noted. Chris nodded, and quickly skipped the rest of the scene. Something I was okay with.

My gaining control of my character helped shake me loose of my dark thoughts. I focused on the screen, cracking my neck in readiness.

I looked around, getting a quick view of my fellow players and surroundings.

We were currently on the starting point for the mission, a VTOL landing pad in the middle of the skyline of New Alexandria. To my right was the Falcon that had come in to provide transport for us. All around were clouds, and a couple stray Banshee's flew across my field of vision, off to go kill some humans.

I was not alone on the platform; there were the two UNSC Army Troopers who would be on the turrets were this a normal game, and the three people I was playing with.

To my right was Chris, his Spartan decked out in primarily yellow armor with green secondary. From what I could see, his armor consisted of the Operator with CMN attachment and silver visor, Assault/Sapper chest, twin ODST shoulders, UGPS wrist, a UA/CHOBAM utility piece, and GUNGNIR knees.

Next to him was Kenny, dark blue armor with red background blending rather nicely with the sky behind him. He was running the base Grenadier helmet and gold visor, ODST shoulders and a Collar/Breacher, a TACPAD, and FJ/PARA knees. His utility spot was filled with a Tactical/HARDCASE.

Finally, there was Grey280. His armor was blue, like Greystripes, but with orange trim instead. It was hard to be sure, however, as coursing over the armor was the signature lightning of the Inclement Weather armor effect. This alone was enough to impress me. IC was the most expensive armor effect, at a cool 2,000,000 credits. I didn't want to think how long it must have taken 280 to get it. His armor itself was less spectacular, consisting of FJ/PARA shoulder pads and knees, what looked like an ODST chest plate (as I couldn't see too well, 280 being in front of me), FJ/PARA shoulders, and what I recognized as the Pilot helmet, one of the helmets that I wanted personally due to it's striking similarity to Semi-Powered Infiltration armor, an obvious choice of headgear for a Spartan-III.

"Nice helmet there, Grey." I noted, complimenting his choice of headgear. 280 turned his character around to face me, and the rest of what I was going to say died in my throat.

As it turned out, I'd been wrong about the helmet; instead of a normal visor, there was just an empty shell, and sitting within it a grinning skull, like those used in Oddball.

I knew this helmet as well; it was called the Haunted Helmet, and you only got it after buying EVERY other helmet in the armory and all their attachments, as well as reach the rank of Reclaimer, the second highest in the game. I did a quick check of the players; for sure, Grey280 wasn't an Reclaimer.

"Damn, how'd you get Haunted?" I asked in awe. "You got connections to Bungie or something?"

Grey's only response was a laugh worthy of the skull in his helmet. I felt my skin crawl.

"Alright, enough gawking. We have a mission to play." Chris's voice cut through my mind, bringing me back to what I needed to do.

We turned to the Falcon next to us, just in time to see a second one come in. On any co-op mission, another Falcon appeared for the other person (or persons, if it was more than two). This Falcon was generally considered better; instead of the standard machine guns on the turret positions, it came with a pair of grenade launchers, just like the ones the one you rode in during the last part of Tip of the Spear. Obviously, those had much higher damage potential, and as such most co-op players preferred this VTOL to the standard one.

My group didn't seem any different. The moment the second Falcon set down, my three fellow players moved towards it, calling out their positions.

"I'm flying!" Chris announced.

"Left turret!" Kenny added.

"I got right!" Grey cut in.

I just sighed. I'd missed all of the different seats in the ship. I'd probably have to take the first Falcon...

"Wait, where's your friend going to ride?" Grey wondered. Chris snorted.

"Inside, where else?" He said. In the real world, I blinked and looked at him.

"You can have people ride inside a Falcon?" I said, shocked. Chris nodded.

"If you get a full load, yeah. I think it only works on this level, though." He explained. I nodded, and without hesitation I walked over to the bird. Sure enough, I got a prompt to climb into the passenger seat. So I did.

"Alright, we're Oscar Mike." Chris said, starting the Falcon's rotors. They came to life with a noise like a hand-cranked food mixer, then rose in volume and pitch to a scream. The VTOL craft lifted smoothly, guided by Chris's obviously practiced hand. As we soared into the air, the voice of Spartan-320, Kat, alias Noble 2, filled my ears.

"Covenant have deployed COM jammers in high-rises across the city," She said, voice syrupy with accent. For a moment, I felt frustration, wishing I knew what the accent was. "When I find them, you hit them. Hard."

"Can do, ma'am!" Chris muttered, as if he were actually taking orders from Kat. I ignored it and instead glanced out the open sides of the Falcon, watching the skyline of New Alexandria fly by.

"Yo, Banshee! Coming in hot!" Grey called out. Before anyone could answer, he opened fire with his grenade launcher, spewing explosive charges into the sky. I watched as much as I could, getting enough line of sight to see the grenades come into contact with the Banshee Grey had called out. It shuddered, then exploded into a hail of shrapnel.

"Nice!" Chris called out.

"A fine shot." Greystripes agreed.

"Stay frosty, though." Chris continued. "There's always another Banshee."

Aside from sounding slightly mystical, the statement was tactically sound; in the skies of New Alexandria, Banshee's always had a wingmate. And sure enough, he was right. Another of the purple Covenant craft soared near our position, and Chris opened up on it with the Falcon's nose chain gun. The rounds, while not as powerful as the grenades, did the job, and the Banshee only lasted a couple seconds longer before blooming into a purple and blue flower of fire. Unfazed by the twin attacks, the Falcon flew on. Kat came over the radio again.

"Stand by, Six. One of our Trooper squads went silent after the hospital got hit. Marking the location now. Complete their mission and take out the jammer."

"Alright, looks like we're going to the hospital first then." Chris noted. Without hesitation, he swung the Falcon in the direction the NAV point that had just appeared on screen pointed us in.

I wasn't surprised we were heading to the hospital. We WERE playing on Normal, after all. The three jammer missions were only truly random on Heroic and Legendary. At least on solo, anyway. Wasn't so sure about co-op...but it didn't really matter.

Chris swung the Falcon into position above the entrance to the hospital, then cut the rotors, dropping down for a landing. Even before the VTOL came into contact with the ground, Greystripes and Grey280 hopped of their turrets, hitting the ground with enough force to drain their shields but not kill them. Chris and I waited till we were on the ground before disembarking. The four of us arranged ourselves into a ragged square, then headed into the hospital itself.

The door opened as it sensed our presence. Before use lay several Grunts, all asleep. Surrounding them was the distinctive purple glow of an Engineer's overshield.

"Spread out," Chris ordered quietly, despite the fact that the Grunt's couldn't hear our communications.

"Take out as many as you can without waking them up. Assassinations and Beat Downs only.

"Copy." Grey whispered. He moved off the the far right, setting himself up behind a Grunt in the red armor of a Major.

"Ready when you are." Kenny added, taking the Grunt to the left, which was a Minor in orange armor. Chris situated himself behind the final Grunt directly ahead of us.

I looked around, searching for a target. Unfortunately, there were only three Grunts on this level, leaving me empty handed.

"Get the Engineer." Chris said. I nodded, agreeing, and quickly set up a firing position near the central well of the hospital tower. I switched from my Assault Rifle to my DMR (the two weapons which I had started the level with) and took aim.

"Ready." I said. Chris grunted, then counted down.

"Three...two...one...Mark!"

The moment he shouted "mark", we struck. Chris, Grey, and Kenny all assassinated their Grunts, pulling combat knifes from their sheaths and ramming them into their target's necks with brutal efficiency and synchronization. I fired six shots from my DMR, causing the Engineer to explode into purple chunks before it got a chance to get away. The sounds of my shots echoed off the walls, mixing with a sudden burst of lightning from the glassing-fueled storm raging outside.

"Tangos down." Grey muttered.

"Nicely done." Chris complimented. "But we aren't finished here."

"Hmm, and here I thought those Grunts were the only Covenant in our way," Kenny said. Through the mic, it was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic or not. I ignored it and simply started heading down the stairs in the center of the tower. The three other Spartan's fell into step behind me, all of use switching to our Assault Rifles to save our more valuable DMR ammo.

Together, we charged down the levels of the complex, working with surprising efficiency for a group that had never played together. Chris and I led the way, with Grey and Kenny covering our six.

We moved through the first part of the hospital like "Hester Shaw on fabricated adrenaline and two gallons of Mountain Dew", in Chris's words (a rough obscure-reference-to-English translation being "really fast"), easily slaughtering the occasional Grunts and Jackals that got in our way. We only paused to grab additional weaponry and equipment. On the second level, Chris grabbed a Shotgun off the floor and Kenny swapped out his Sprint for the Drop Shield in the crate next to it. On the next level down, Grey swapped out his Assault Rifle for a Needler, letting us take the rest of his ammo for ourselves. Only once did we run into trouble; at the very bottom of the tower was a Brute Captain, armed with a Needle Rifle. But even he never stood a chance; all four of use opened fire at once on him with our DMR's, and not even a Brute can withstand that many 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds. With a howl of defeat he fell, and the Grunts around the room scattered, witnessing their leader fall.

Still in sync, the four of us killed them quickly with headshots and melee attacks.

Once the dust settled, Kenny took the opportunity to swap out his DMR for the Brute's Needle Rifle, stating his preference for it. No one complained. We simply took his extra ammo and continued on.

Quickly, we moved into the next section. As we did, we heard a radio transmission from one of the Troopers we were here to help out, a girl;

"I said _back off_, you nasty son of a bitch!"

"Move!" Chris called out, swapping to his Shotgun. The rest of us followed him into combat.

We were in a short hallway with multiple levels, all of which were covered by several Brutes, all Minors and Captains. We split off, each person engaging a separate target.

I charged up the stairs to the right of where we entered the room, swapping out my Assault Rifle for a Shotgun I saw on the ground. With pellet gun in hand, I Sprinted forward, coming into position on the flank of a Brute Captain that was taking aim at my team with his Needle Rifle. I fired, blowing him back, then finished him off with a melee strike. He fell and I continued on, charging for his two companions. I blasted the first one, only to see him fall to a well-aimed needle from Kenny. Without pausing, I switched my grenade type to Plasma and stuck the final Brute. Even before the grenade went off, I jumped down off the platform and directly behind another of the ape-like enemies. I smacked him and he fell.

The room fell silent. While I had been taking out my Brutes, my team had cleaned up the rest, as well as an Engineer that had been floating back next to the jammer. The only things left alive in the room were us and three UNSC Army Troopers, one of who was the girl who had spoken.

"Thanks for the assist, Spartan." She said. "Jammer's right over there."

"What, that's it?" Grey quipped. "No celebratory Bravo Juno?"

"Dude, that's just gross!" Chris moaned, before bursting into laughter. Grey joined in as well. Kenny and I stayed silent.

"I don't get it." I said finally.

"Neither do I." Kenny agreed with me. "Let's arm up these Troopers."

"Right." I walked over to the female Trooper and swapped our my now near-empty DMR for her pistol. I tried it out a little, reloading it and checking out the scope to see how it felt to use it on Chris's slightly different controller. It felt fine, so I switched back to my Shotgun. The rest of my team armed up the remaining two Troopers with a DMR and a Shotgun. While they did that, Grey and Chris both grabbed Jetpacks from the case behind the jammer.

"Hit it." Chris ordered. I guessed he meant the jammer. Since I was the closest, I moved over to the large purple machine and held RB.

There was a hiss, then a rising whine, and then the jammer exploded as it's internal systems overloaded. The moment it went off, Kat came back over the radio.

"Jammer offline. Nice work Six. Soon as you can, I need you back in your Falcon."

There was a pause, then the air filled with the noise of Elite Rangers hopping towards us on their jump packs.

"Incoming!" Grey shouted. "Light 'em up!"

And light them up we did. The firefight between us and the Elites lasted all of 45 seconds, with the flying Elites being caught in a literal wave of 7.62mm rounds, needles, 8-gauge magnum buckshot, and 12.7mm pistol rounds. One after another, they fell. The moment the last one hit the deck, we were gone, moving forward, scavenging whatever ammo was left from the dropped weapons on the floor. Then, with Troopers in tow, we headed back to the entrance.

Outside was another welcoming party; two Skirmishers and a high-ranking Elite with a Concussion Rifle. Once again, we engaged as one, but this time it was even more overkill; all four of us lobbed Plasma Grenades, and all four hit on target. The Elite had enough time to roar before four brilliant blue explosions sent him bouncing skyward like a pinball. With him out of the way, the two Skirmishers covering him were easily dealt with.

"We're all clear here, sir." The female Trooper called out. "You can head back to you bird."

"Alright, lets go!" Chris called out. He lead the way back up the hospitals tower, using his jetpack to climb to the next level quickly. As such, he reached the level above faster than we did. But we all eventually arrived a the Falcon, and boarded, in the same positions that we were in last time.

However, even before we had a chance to go any farther, disaster struck. But no in the game.

"Hey, uh, I gotta go." Kenny called out quickly. "My mom wants me for something."

"Lame!" Chris lamented. "How long you think this is going to take? We only have to deal with the random emergency mission."

"A while." Kenny finished with a sigh. "I think she wants me to help cook dinner."

"Oh." Chris's voice fell. I could guess the feeling he was going through; that sudden, gut-wrenching feeling of loss and confusion when something you've planned for ages suddenly falls through.

"Yeah, I should probably go too." Grey added. " My sister's yelling at me that my Live is slowing down her computer."

"Well, that's fine. We'll continue this later." I said.

With a shrug, Chris opened the pause menu and quickly selected End Game. The screen went dark as the game shut down, then the Post Game Carnage Report came up. With final farewells, the two other players in our party left.

I glanced over at Chris. He was sitting quietly, staring at the screen. Then he tore off his headset, tossed it on the floor (not hard enough to damage it, but enough to get his point across), and unloaded what seemed like ever sci-fi swear word he'd ever heard into a single sentence. After he was finished, he simply collapsed onto the couch.  
>I paused, unsure of what to say.<p>

Thankfully, Chris saved me from any real heavy contemplation.

"You wanna do something else?" He asked. Without hesitation, I nodded. Chris's face broke into a smile again, and he practically vaulted off the couch.

"Come one. I can show you my copy of Cryptum that I just got."

"Really? You got Cryptum?" I was surprised. I hadn't thought that the first book in the Forerunner trilogy was out yet. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

We quickly climbed the stairs back up to his room. The moment he entered, Chris started rummaging through his bookshelves. Lacking anything else to do, I sat down on his bed.

"Got it!" Chris called. He held up a medium-sized hardback book, then tossed it underhand. I snagged it out of the air easily and started reading.

"Nice catch." Chris noted, sitting down at his computer again. After a minute or so, he turned and started typing. I continued browsing, noting absently that apparently the Forerunners had a thing for hats.

From the floor came a buzzing noise. Chris and I glanced up, confused. It came again, and we both started looking for where it was coming from.

Chris found it first. It turned out to be my cell phone. Not wanting it to go to voice mail, he answered it.

"Hello?"

Silence while the person on the other end of the line spoke.

"No, its Chris."

_Who is is?_ I mouthed.

Chris turned and pointed to his wall. I followed his finger. He was pointing at a small poster that I remembered seeing him get at the ECCC. The subject was Miranda Keyes in her final moments, defiance in her eyes and a shotgun in her hands.

It took me a minute to realize what Chris was saying.

_Miranda_ was on the phone.

My heart rate sped up, becoming almost painful.

_I'm...Not...Here, _ I mouthed out, waving my hands in a "no go" gesture for emphasis. I didn't want to hear what she had to say. I didn't want to talk to her period. Just thinking about talking to her made me feel slightly sick.

Thankfully, Chris understood.

"No, he's not available, may I take a message?"

More silence, punctuated by the sudden trip-hammer pounding of my heart.

"Okay, sure. I'll tell him when I see him again. Uh huh. Sure. Yeah, I'll help you get that Challenge next time I'm on. Yeah. You too. Bye." He hung up the phone.

"What did she want?" I croaked out. My throat suddenly went dry.

"She wanted to apologize for last night and make sure you were safe." Chris blinked, obviously confused. I let him stay that way. "She also wants to discuss something. Face to face."

I lay back on the bed, thinking over this new information. My first reaction was to say "hell no!" and tell her to fuck off. But, the more I thought about it, the less tactically viable that seemed.

That, and the stupidity of my earlier fear became clear to me.

What the hell had I been so afraid of earlier? For that matter, why'd I run out randomly like I did? I'd been sad, sure. Maybe a little angry, and undeniably envious. But why-

Realization hit me like an overcharged Plasma Pistol shot.

Last night, for just a bit, I'd gone rampant. Sadness, Anger, Envy. The three stages.

No wonder I'd been acting so strange.

"Did she give you any directions or whatever?" I asked Chris. He nodded.

"She's at your place. Said for you to come over whenever your ready to talk."

I nodded, then glanced at the clock on Chris's wall. It was two in the afternoon. As I had nothing to do today...

"I'll go see her right now." I declared, heaving myself off the bed. Chris stood with me.

"I've got your six, man." He said, grabbing his coat from the chair he'd been sitting in. "You're going to need all the help you can get. And, well, I wouldn't mind seeing Miranda face to face..."

"Sure." I motioned for him to follow. It would be good to have someone watch my back for this. That, and I didn't have a car and Chris did...

We moved downstairs, Chris locking the back door as we headed for the living room. As we did, I took a mental overview of my feelings;

No more sadness, no more anger, no more envy. I was good to go.

Without hesitation, I squared my shoulders and followed Chris to his car.

It was time to give Miranda back her boyfriend.


End file.
